Impacts of the Indonesian Economic Crisis: Price Changes and the Poor

The recent financial crisis in Indonesia has resulted in dramatic price increases. Using very recent data, we investigate whether these price increases have impacted the cost-of-living of poor households in a disproportionately harsh way. We find that the poor have indeed been hit hardest. Just how hard the poor have been hit, though, depends crucially on where the household lives, whether the household is in a rural or urban area, and just how the cost-of-living index is computed. What is clear is that the notion that the very poor are so poor as to be insulated from international shocks is simply wrong. Rather, in the Indonesian case, the very poor appear the most vulnerable.